


Murderers of Aktaion

by inabathrobe



Category: Secret History - Donna Tartt
Genre: Ancient religion is a fun time for the whole family, Francis POV, Gen, M/M, Murder and Mayhem, Not for "Babe" fans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-22 01:50:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inabathrobe/pseuds/inabathrobe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Last night, they murdered a man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Murderers of Aktaion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [postcardmystery](https://archiveofourown.org/users/postcardmystery/gifts).



> Warnings: explicit killing of an animal, a lot of blood, mentions of murder.
> 
> Many thanks to [Luna](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Luna/) for betaing this and to [Sophie](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Sophie/) and [Ali](http://archiveofourown.org/users/theficisalie/) for putting up with me.

He was sitting at the end of the bed and they were dancing around him, women in tutus, bright stark white against their dark skin, going through the motions of the Christmas nutcracker, all of them wearing Josephine Baker’s face —and singing something high and tuneless and wailing, a ringing jingle-jangling song like a telephone.

The phone. The phone was ringing. Francis sat straight up in bed. He was in Henry’s bed and he was naked and the phone in the hallway was ringing. Last night, he and his closest friends had murdered a man.

Francis got up and answered the phone.

It was Bunny. Francis listened as Bunny hemmed and hawed, his mind half on picking the dirt from under his nails, half on Bunny. He heard footsteps behind him and started anyway, dropping the receiver. Henry, wearing his bathrobe, raised his eyebrows high as he loomed out of the darkness.

"You scared me half to death," Francis said as though it weren’t obvious.

"Who called?"

"Bunny." Henry swore in Greek, and Francis added, "For dinner, I think."

Henry pursed his lips. "We had better get it over with."

Henry started fussing around in his pockets, probably for a cigarette, as Francis bent and picked up the receiver, pressing it to his ear. "You still there, Bun?" 

"Bit of a loose cannon there, old man. What's got into you all?"

"Henry snuck up on me," Francis said evasively. Henry had pulled out his pack of Lucky Strikes, and Francis gestured with two figures for Henry to light him one.

"How'd he sneak up on you?" Bunny said. "It's five o'clock in the evening."

Francis eyed Henry, two cigarettes between his lips, one hand shakily striking at his lighter. He missed twice, the flame stuttering, but managed it on the third try. "I wasn't expecting him."

"You're in his goddamn house, aren't you?"

Francis shrugged helplessly. "I took a nap." His stomach churned, and a gentle thumping began against his temples, the beating of a soft senseless tattoo. Henry offered him the cigarette, burning malevolently in the unlit front hall, and Francis took it with shaking fingers and would've dropped it, too, if Henry hadn't held on to it a moment longer.

"Oh, for goodness' sake, Francis," Henry snapped.

"Sorry, sorry!"

"Open your lips."

Francis did as he was told, and Henry set the cigarette between them. Francis took a long drag on it and shuddered, imagining that he could feel the nicotine hitting his bloodstream. "Oh, hell."

"Hey, what's going on over there?" Bunny said over the line.

"Nearly set Henry's apartment on fire with my cigarette," Francis said, laughing weakly.

"Are the twins there, too?" he said, suspicious.

Francis cocked an eyebrow at Henry, who was listening in silence. He nodded once and jerked his head toward the back rooms. "Yes, they're in the spare bedroom."

"What, together?"

"Henry was with them a moment ago."

"You sure he wasn't sharing with you, Francis?"

Francis said, "Yes, I'm sure," with more animosity than he'd meant to. Henry put a hand on his shoulder, heavy and steadying.

There was a short silence on the line.

"Bun?"

"Well, look, old sport, what do you say to going to the Brasserie for some dinner?"

Francis wanted to say no very badly. The exhaustion was creeping back, and he felt thin and stretched and ill. "Of course. Why don't you meet us at Henry's?" Henry nodded once before walking into the kitchen.

When Francis had finally gotten Bunny off the line, his cigarette down to a stump, he followed Henry. The air was filled with smoke, and the kettle was whistling softly, forgotten by Henry who was trying to jiggle the window open.

Francis went and turned the burner off. "Tea?"

Henry, behind him, finally coaxed the window open. "Yes, please. There should be Earl Grey in the cupboard."

Francis warmed each coffee cup before he dropped a tea bag in and poured hot water over them, nervously checking and rechecking the time on his watch as though it mattered if he over-steeped them. When he pulled the tea bags out, he went hunting for a lemon in Henry's nearly empty refrigerator.

"Cream will do for mine," Henry said from the window, his head half stuck out it, gasping at the cold air. Trust Henry to have cream and nothing else, not even milk. Francis got it out of the fridge and managed to drown both their teas with it. He left them on the counter and sat down heavily at the kitchen table. Henry turned to look at him. "Oh."

Francis could not catch his breath for a moment, wheezing gently. "Henry—" He pressed a hand to his heart, a sudden pain flaring in his chest. He shut his eyes. "Henry, what are we going to tell him?"

"Don't be melodramatic." He heard Henry shut the window. "We won't tell him anything that he doesn't need to know." Henry was running the tap for something, and Francis heard him pour out the tea. He set a glass of water down next to Francis and shook him. "Drink. I'll go wake Charles and Camilla." Francis nodded once. "Oh, and Francis? Do put something on."

* * *

Even though it was pouring rain, Francis insisted on having his window open and chain smoked the entire way there, happy not to have to think. Richard —and what a godsend that was— complained weakly whenever they hit a puddle and muddy rainwater splashed far enough across the front seat to get at his coat. Henry, in the backseat, squeezed in next to the twins, was silent on the matter. At one point, when Francis's cigarette blew out and he couldn't quite manage to light the next one, Henry leaned forward and handed him one, already lit. Francis didn't manage to thank him, but did manage not to leave any cigarette burns on the upholstery.

Bunny, Richard, and Charles chattered the entire way over. Francis wished they wouldn't.

* * *

They got one of the tables near the restaurant's enormous fireplace, which left Francis feeling overheated and sticky with sweat. Bunny spent easily five minutes grilling Caspar, the goddamn maître d', about what animals he turned into roadkill lately, and Francis had watched as both Camilla and Charles had gotten paler and paler until Camilla had actually had to get up and hide in the bathroom. Francis had a feeling that, if Henry hadn't chased Caspar off by tersely asking to order drinks, Charles would have followed her in.

The waiter was a scrawny, pasty fellow with very mousy auburn hair and a slight, scruffy goatee. During their sophomore year, Henry, in a fit of pique, had once told Francis the entire history of the goatee, which had more to do with art history than Francis had initially been prepared to believe. After nearly an hour's prattling, Francis had kissed him to shut him up. (It had all ended rather poorly.) The waiter had a nasally voice rather like a very low-rent version of Bunny's, and his sport coat didn't quite fit in the shoulders. "Can I get you gentlemen something to drink?"

As if on cue, Camilla drifted out of the bathroom toward their table, her red scarf still wrapped tightly around her throat. Both she and Charles were wearing old sweaters of Henry's in drab grays and browns over the white clothes they'd worn the day before, a knit dress for Camilla and neatly pleated slacks for Charles.

As the mousy waiter took their orders (hot toddies for Bunny and Richard and tea for the rest of them; Charles ordered for Camilla without being asked), Francis watched his gaze linger on Henry whose face was utterly, utterly blank.

* * *

He leaned against the wall outside the Brasserie, tucked under the eaves, smoking insistently. Francis could've done it inside, but over the course of their Welsh rarebits (and many, many jokes about hunting accidents), he had developed an intense need to get out of the stifling heat of the restaurant. He threw his first cigarette to the ground and crushed it with the heel of his shoe as though there were any danger of it staying alight in such a downpour. While he was considering whether he needed another (yes for his nerves and no for his nearly empty pack), Charles slipped out of the front doors and hesitated on the threshold.

"Do you need an invitation?" Francis said, putting the cigarette in his mouth and lighting it.

"No," Charles said. "I just haven't made up my mind yet." He fiddled with the fraying cuff of the cable knit sweater he was wearing, one that Henry hadn't worn since their freshman year. Francis had spilled two fingers of quite good gin on it once. It had never been as soft since.

Francis said, "It's a dark and stormy night."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Charles hooked a thumb through a hole near the hem, studiously not making eye contact. He wasn't drunk, which made the overture almost refreshing, but Francis did not have the energy to coax. He felt like he was drowning, the rain washing away all his air, leaving him gasping on the shore.

He put out his cigarette.

Charles crossed quickly and quietly to him, his footsteps inaudible in the rattle-clang of the storm. A flash of lighting lit them up, washing out Charles's complexion, bleaching his eyelashes against his cheek, showing him sweaty and pale in the darkness. Francis leaned across the space between them and kissed him. Charles's lips against his were soft, tasting faintly eggy with notes of milky tea. Francis cupped the back of Charles's head, fingers running across the nape of his neck, soft, smooth, vulnerable. With the rain running down his face, Francis could not breathe. Charles whispered something against Francis's lips. It might have been, "Oh, God."

Behind them, the doors swung open. "Francis," Henry half-shouted, "get back in here before—" They sprang apart like deer caught in headlights (oh, how ironic). "Oh," and he went silently back inside.

They looked at each other, blotted out by the darkness and the rain. "You first," Charles muttered, and Francis was sent in to face Bunny and Richard and Henry and Camilla alone.

* * *

By the end of dinner, Francis wanted to want a drink. Henry, who would inevitably get stuck with the check, did not seem to mind Bunny glutting himself on whiskey half the meal, but none of _bakchoi_ had touched a drop. "Any takers for an after-dinner brandy?" Bunny called out, a little too loud, when their plates had all been cleared and they had, excepting Charles's roulage, declined dessert. His request was met with stony silence. "Not even you, Richard?"

Richard, caught off guard, began to stumble through an explanation of why he didn't want another drink, which Francis suspected just added up to not wanting to torture the rest of the dinner party, but Bunny cut him off, "What, drunk already, old boy?"

Richard, miserable, said yes. Charles clapped him on the back as much in thanks for shutting Bunny up as in congratulations for being sloshed, which Francis was fairly certain he wasn't.

Henry flagged the waiter to Bunny's adamant protests and handed him his card without even seeing the bill. Bunny leveled a finger at him. "You shouldn't trust these tailcoat types, Henry. They'll miscalculate your bill soon as look at you."

Henry blackly muttered an aphorism from Isocrates, which said that if a man had to go to _symposia_ , he had best leave before he was drunk because a wine-soaked mind was like a charioteer without its charioteer.

"What's that?" Bunny said menacingly, although the rest of them had all caught it, even Richard (and then Francis knew he wasn't drunk).

Henry said, "Easy does it, Bun." Luckily, their waiter returned just then with the check, which Henry signed in record time, leaving what was really a rather generous tip considering how relentlessly average the service at the Brasserie always was. "Are you going to finish your roulage, Charles?"

Charles looked from the dessert, to Bunny's ruddy-cheeked face, to Camilla's green-tinged one. "No."

"Let's go," Henry said in a tone that brooked no argument. He stood and swung his coat on, hands quick and sure on the buttons. The rest of them had all risen by the time that Bunny decided to get up, and they were left milling about, no one wanting to be left alone in the restaurant with him. Richard shot Francis a glance as if to say, "What's wrong with Bunny?", but Francis deftly evaded it, slipping over to Henry's side.

"I can't take much more of this."

"Shut up, Francis," he hissed.

"Henry—"

"Come _on_ , Bun," Henry said.

Bunny, once again a benign drunk, blinked slowly at Henry through glassy eyes. "Sorry, sorry. I'm coming." When he had made it out to the car, supported by Henry, the tail end of a procession that began with Charles and Camilla, arm in arm, Bunny looked onerously at Henry's car. Breaking away from him, Bunny circled it, peering through his rain-streaked glasses.

The twins slid into the backseat, clutching at one another's hands. Richard, unnoticing, started the car, and the headlights flooded in front of Francis, half blinding him. Francis turned to Henry in time to see the panic-stricken look cloud his face, clear as daylight. The car was practically unblemished. Thin and reedy in the whipping wind, like a voice coming from very far away, Bunny said, "This the one you were in last night?"

"Yes," Henry said.

Bunny pushed his straggling bangs out of his eyes, squinting through his spectacles. "German cars! Hate to say it, but I think the Krauts have got Detroit metal beat. I don't see a scratch."

Richard leaned over the passenger seat, his face lit only by the car's interior lighting. "What are you talking about?"

Henry's fingers bit into the flesh of Francis's arm. He pulled away, but Henry's arm went with him. "Don't say a thing," Henry hissed while Bunny was doubtlessly repeating their lie to Richard.

Bunny's voice came booming out of the gloom. "Did you kill it?"

Francis jumped in spite of himself, and Henry let go, making for the car. "What's that?"

"The deer," Bunny said, leaning on the wet car. "Didja kill it?"

Francis needed a cigarette. He fumbled in his pockets for the pack and knocked it out of his jacket and onto the wet ground. "Shit," he muttered, scooping it up and inspecting its contents, which if they had not been wet when he picked them up, certainly were now.

Over the constant tapping of rain and rolling of thunder, Francis heard Henry say very clearly, "It looked pretty dead to me."

And Bunny laughed.

* * *

Richard dropped each of them off in turn, Bunny first and then Francis. At the door of his own darkened apartment, Francis hesitated, turning the key slowly in the lock. Inside, it was still and dry. He shut the door quickly behind him and, dripping on the awful old linoleum, went straight into the kitchen where he mixed himself a very strong vodka martini. He sat down at his dining table in one of the uncomfortable spindly little chairs he had taken from the country house, his sodden clothes clinging to him. He took a sip of his drink and set it down. Head in his hands, he began to cry.

* * *

Two hours later, the phone rang. Francis did not get up from where he was propped up in bed with a closed paperback novel and an open bottle of wine. His mind was beginning to go pleasantly unfocused. When he had tried to make himself the last drink, he had spilled a quarter of a bottle of Grey Goose across the countertop. He could, however, manage wine from the bottle, which he was drinking in spades. The phone rang on. He decided he didn't care, took a slug of wine, and spilled a little on the coverlet. It soaked in, a dark red-purple splotch like, oh, like blood.

On the tenth ring, he picked up the phone in spite of himself.

"Hello?"

"Francis?"

"Henry?"

Francis felt suddenly dizzy and unstable as he clung to the doorframe. He tried to manage words, something, anything, knew they'd been found out, oh, God, oh, hell.

"You can't sleep."

"What?" Francis said.

"I said, you can't sleep," Henry repeated, slow and steady.

"Oh," Francis said and breathed a sigh of relief. "No, I can't."

"Neither can I. Can you drive?"

"Probably not."

"All right, I'll come over then—"

"No, no, wait. Henry, I can't—" He took a deep gulping breath. "I can't stay here. Please come pick me up."

Francis could almost hear Henry nod once. "Don't worry about letting me in. I've got the key."

* * *

His knuckles were white as he clung to the door handle. "I'm going to be sick. Can't you drive like a normal person?"

"You're not going to be sick," Henry said, voice tense and tight.

"Yes, I am."

"No. You're not."

They compromised: Francis threw up in the gutter in front of Henry's house.

* * *

Neither of them made it out of bed the next morning. Although Henry might have without Francis's company to hold him back, every time he did more than leave the room to find the book he wanted, Francis shouted him back into the bedroom. Sometimes, Francis let him make tea. Around two, he forced Henry to take a call. It was Charles.

"What?" Henry said belligerently. "Oh. I see." Francis knew Henry was chewing on his lip. He peeked at the book Henry had been reading, not Pali today but something in Greek. Plato. Even Henry's nerves must have been shaken if he had retreated to Plato.

"Don't lose my place, please," Henry called over his shoulder.

"I won't," Francis said sulkily.

"Oh, Francis is here," Henry said into the phone again. "Well, you've got Camilla, but he was all alone, so I figured— Yes. Quite. No, you're welcome to. Well, actually, I was thinking—" Francis watched him from the bedroom, just the one edge of him visible. Henry half-turned to face him. "Are you well enough to go out to the country house?"

Francis froze for a moment, memories of the last time they'd been there suddenly flashing bright and clear through his mind, scenes he had thought he had forgotten, mental scabs ripping away, _ivy twining up from the ground, a beast running beside them, Camilla's hair a bloody, sticky red._ He wavered slightly. "No."

Henry said into the phone, "Yes, he'd be happy to."

* * *

They took Francis's car supposedly to arouse at little suspicion as possible, although they ought to have brought Bunny and Richard with them if they wanted those two not to wonder. Despite Henry's sustained protestations, Francis insisted on being allowed to drive it himself. The drive ended up taking at least an hour longer than usual because, just to spite Henry, Francis refused to pass an octogenarian driving ten below the speed limit. When they got there, it was past dark, and there was almost nothing to eat in the house. Henry said, "I hope you're happy," and Francis told him that he would hit him, but he didn't want to split a knuckle on Henry's fucking face.

Charles said, "Shut up, both of you," and shoved hacked-up slices of stale bread into the toaster. Camilla rummaged silently through the liquor cabinet and pulled out a few bottles of decent wine, an unopened fifth of Cutty Sark, and a nearly empty handle of vodka. She made a moue of distaste, opened her mouth to speak, and closed it again. She tapped the glass with a finger to get Charles's attention. "Hm? Oh. Damn. We could do hot toddies, I suppose."

Francis shuddered. "Let's just stick with wine."

"Out of the bottle," Charles said, "or do you want to bother with glasses?"

"Water glasses, perhaps?" Francis said. "Wine glasses are out of my league tonight."

"That's a bit crass, isn't it?" Henry said.

At some point during the ensuing argument, complete with Camilla taking part through Charles's aid and through gesture, Henry sidled out of the room, taking the first slices of toast with him. Charles called him some choice names when he realized the toast was gone, but his absence settled it in favor of the water glasses, each one filled nearly to the brim with cheap tasteless white wine because none of them could bear the sight of a red.

* * *

The wine bottle between him and Charles was empty, and the ashtray was full. They were bundled up against the shiveringly cold night, each covered in a blanket or two, and the bitter wind that swept across the yard onto the back porch, rattling in the leaves and the eaves, had driven Camilla inside to bed hours before. Francis tapped the last of his ash into the slim neck of the empty wine bottle and then let the cigarette fall in.

He glanced over at Charles, his face unreadable in the thick countryside night, all moonlight blocked out by the porch roof. "We should've brought a candle out."

"It wouldn't've lasted in this wind," Charles said. "Or, worse, it would've set the house on fire."

Francis licked his lips. His thoughts felt sticky like glue. He had the odd feeling that Charles was staring at him. Francis could hear an engine somewhere in the distance, coming toward them. Perhaps, it was the police come to take them away. He best not waste time, then. He leaned over, touching Charles's shoulder, about to whisper in his ear. By his elbow, the wine bottle rocked precariously.

Charles stood up abruptly, knocking the bottle over. "Oh, hell, they're pulling into the drive."

"Fuck," Francis said, more dismal than concerned. In a slanting patch of moonlight, he could tell that his car was not parked in front of the house anymore. Either there were some particularly lucky thieves abroad tonight, or, "It's Henry. Sit down."

Charles collapsed back into his seat, clutching at his blankets. They watched Henry pull up and park the car messily. The driver's side door swung open, and he slammed it shut, circling around the car. He retrieved a large sack from the passenger seat and shut the door, not bothering to lock the car. Francis knew he was drunk because he couldn't find the words to shout at him for it.

Henry crossed over the scrubby yard, its grass dead or dying, his shoulders hunched. His gait was awkward and out of kilter without his umbrella to steady it. The sack was clutched tightly in his hands and it seemed to ripple in the moonlight, but maybe it was just the drink. Francis squinted, his vision swimming. He sipped at his wine, taking the last swallow and peering out at Henry through the thick glass bottom as though it were a telescope. Henry stopped two feet from the back porch. "Put that down."

Francis lowered his glass. "You were out late."

Henry ignored him. "Where's Camilla?"

"In bed," Charles said, too loud. "What do you care?"

Henry wrinkled his nose. "How drunk are you two?"

They glanced at each other, and Francis watched a smile curl across Charles's lips, distorting his ordinarily kind face into a tragedy mask, a poor man's Medea. "We are deep in our cups," Francis said. "Haven't you brought any flute girls?"

"Drunk as the devil himself," Charles said, enunciating careful, his lips moving wildly as he over-articulated. Francis knew better than to kiss him in front of Henry, but he wanted to, anyway. Henry was not smiling, not in the slightest, when Francis glanced over at him, bringing him precariously into focus. Henry hated it when they made asses of themselves, but that was Henry: no sense of humor, except when it wasn't wanted.

"Look, will you run inside and get her?" Henry said sharply.

Charles scrunched his nose up. "She's in be-ed."

"This is important," Henry snapped, and Charles, drunk as he was, knew better than to argue. Francis watched as he stumbled upright and out of his chair, drifting weirdly against gravity as Francis knew it. He blinked, darkness momentarily curling in on his vision. He shut his eyes for a moment and opened them wide, and Henry was much closer now. Charles's footsteps were retreating deep into the house, softening on the runner up the stairs.

"Francis?"

"Mm." Francis blinked affectionately up at Henry, suddenly feeling very much drunker than he had meant to be.

Henry grabbed hold of his chin and tilted it up, looking into his eyes. "I'm going to make some coffee. Try to sober up, won't you?"

* * *

Francis slunk into the kitchen and poured himself into a chair whose stiff, curved back caught him. Henry was going through the knives, pulling out gleaming blade after gleaming blade. Francis, who had not really managed to collect himself at all outside, sobered up at once. "Henry," he said, "what are you doing?"

Henry pulled a meat cleaver out of the knife block. "Doing what needs to be done," he said.

"You're not— Put that down," he said sharply as Henry turned to face him, carelessly brandishing the knife. "What are you going to do to Camilla?"

Looking up from his examination of the knife, swishing it through the empty air, Henry stared at him blankly. "Nothing."

Francis said, "Then, what've you got the knife for and why're you dragging her out of bed at three in the morning?"

Henry's eyes went wide. "Is it three already?" He set the knife down, went over the percolating coffee pot, and poured a cup for each of them. He went to the refrigerator and pulled out the carton of creamer.

"No milk for me," Francis said automatically.

"I _know_ ," Henry snapped. Francis looked up at him through heavy-lidded eyes and smiled thinly. Henry did not say he was sorry. He did not say that he was exhausted, either, that he hadn't slept the night before (but neither of them had), but Francis could read it in the slump of his shoulders and the way he didn't bother to hide that he was favoring his good knee. Henry placed the coffee cup next to Francis on the kitchen table. "Drink."

"What else would I do with it?"

Sitting on the edge of the other captain's chair, Henry sipped at his milky coffee, eyes shut. Behind his thin, veined lids, they were red-rimmed and watery. Bruises like tire-treads spread out under each one. Henry was tired, and it scared the hell out of Francis. 

Francis reached over and squeezed Henry's hand, white-knuckled where it clutched the tabletop, the pads of his fingers pressing up against the slick varnish on the oak wood. Henry said nothing, only sipped his coffee.

* * *

He awoke with a start to Henry shaking him and holding a hot cup of coffee to his lips. "What time is it?" Francis said after he'd taken a few bitter gulps. It was still pitch dark outside, although Henry had deigned to turn on the electric lights in the kitchen.

"Nearly four," Henry said. "Come on, Charles and Camilla have finally come down."

Francis yawned so widely his mouth ached. "Can't this wait?"

"No."

"I know, I know." He struggled up and teetered for a moment, a headache hovering over him, just waiting for him to finally sober up. He was, of course, still drunk. "Where are they?"

"The porch," Henry said, "minding the pig for me."

Francis stared at him in confusion for a moment and then realized. "Oh," he said. "Of course." They strolled to the backdoor, which Henry obligingly opened for him.

"Is Sleeping Beauty finally up?" Charles said from the stoop. No one bothered to answer him. The night was just beginning to lift, showing the slightest purplish tint. Francis nearly stumbled as they crossed the porch, and Henry caught him under the arm. The pig was actually a piglet, a small muddy pale shadow, held in Camilla's lap. She was icy pale, all her color gone, and although it could have been the moonlight, Francis didn't think so.

"Sit," Henry said, and Francis did, heavily, on the edge of the porch, his legs dangling over the edge into empty air. Henry turned around and went back into the kitchen, coming back with a knife, the long one with a smooth blade. Without being told, they rose, him and Charles and Camilla. She held the piglet out first to Charles and then to Francis and then to Henry, each of them refusing it in turn. As if prompted, they formed a circle where the moonlight shown clear and cool on the dirt ground.

"Hold it still," Henry said. He had a white fillet tied around his head. In the moonlight, it gleamed. He approached Camilla, his hand gripping the knife. She looked up at him, her eyes blank, and then looked down at the piglet. They all looked down. Henry took the knife and slid it across the piglet's throat in a single movement, and red blood blossomed across its neck. The piglet struggled, blood flowing over its chest and legs and Camilla's hands. Henry dropped the knife. "Raise it up," he said, and she did, letting the blood pour over his head. It soaked his hair and dripped down his forehead into his eyes, and he blinked it back. In Camilla's hands, the piglet thrashed, the last throes of its life, and Henry took it from her and held it over Francis's head, his chin tucked, and he felt its blood flow across his scalp, hot and quick.

_Take it._

Charles moved wordlessly toward him, and Francis held the piglet up where the moonlight shimmered on its twitching back and its blood slid into Charles's golden hair, profane and slightly Byzantine. The piglet shuddered and was still. _Quickly now._ Charles snatched it from him, going toward Camilla, holding it above her like a prize, and there it bled and bled and bled till his hands were red and her hair looked like it had when he had found her by the stream.

The piglet was dead. Charles let it fall to the ground. The blood on Francis's hands was black and cooling. Camilla pressed a hand to her mouth and then crumpled, on hands and knees, heaving drily, little sobs the only noises she made, and Charles held her hair, rubbed her back, and swathed her in blood.

Henry looked on, silent.

* * *

In the morning, in the kitchen, Francis found Henry and Camilla awake before him. Henry was busy at the stove, and Camilla was sipping a cup of coffee. She called out, voice hoarse but present, " _François! Henri cuisine des œufs pour dejeuner._ "

Francis said, "Well, thank goodness for that. I'm famished."

**Author's Note:**

> A very small number of lines, all dialogue, are lifted directly from the novel. Most (if not all) are at the end of the scene at the Brassiere.


End file.
